A bad interaction with a nurse

I had a nurse tell me recently that I "need to figure out how things work around here." My offense: I interrupted her when she was talking with another nurse because I needed my patient's vitals. It was 5 minutes before rounds, and the most recent vital signs in my patient's chart were from 7pm the previous evening. I was polite about it ("I'm sorry for interrupting..."), but it would have been very bad showing up at rounds that morning without my patient's vitals.

Later in the afternoon, I went to check up on my patient before she was sent down to surgery. My patient wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything since breakfast, so it was no surprise that she asked for some water when I asked if there was anything I could do for her. Yeah, nice try. That same nurse happened to be in the room during this exchange. Before I could reply, the nurse jumped in: "You might be able to fool him because he's new here, but I've been working here for 20 years, and you can't fool me!"

I felt belittled and undermined. Realistically, my patient most likely didn't catch any hidden meaning in the nurse's comment. I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it, either, if it weren't for her icy response to my interrupting her earlier in the morning.

This nurse's behavior in my opinion was both unprofessional and unacceptable. So what did I do about it? Nothing. Just vent to my friends and on this blog. I have been fortunate up until now in that almost all of the people with whom I have interacted on the wards have conducted themselves professionally. Medical students (mostly third-years) tend to get a lot of flak because we're thrown into the world of medicine with little practical experience. We have to start somewhere.

If this nurse continues to undermine me in front of my patient, I will talk to my resident about it and ask him what he thinks I should do to fix the situation. This is what I would say to the nurse:

I respect the work you do as a nurse and your 20 years of experience - in fact, I rely on your experience as I'm learning how to be a good doctor. But I need you to respect my role as a student and the process of my medical education. I felt undermined when you highlighted my inexperience in front of my patient. Please don't do that again.